Cable box be damned!

When CableCARD technology was announced, the hope of every man, woman and child in these great 50 states was the promise of finally, once-and-for-all getting rid of the cable box. But, with technological limitations this was not to be. Finally, our nation can breathe a sigh of relief and pitch that box to the curb where it belongs!

New tru2way technology will allow cable subscribers access to all of the premium cable content including video on demand services! Panasonic has partnered with Comcast to announce a series of products featuring this technology including Plasma TVs and portable DVR devices. These devices will be based on CableLab’s OpenCableT standards that are being adopted by cable providers nationwide.

While not directly related, this will also be hugely exciting news to owners of Vista-powered media center servers like those from Niveus, S1Digital, and LifeWare. The current generation of CableCARDs limits the programming received, something I experienced during my recent review of an S1Digital server (story in the February/March 2008 issue of S&V, available on soundandvisionmag.com shortly).

Panasonics Viera HDTVs featuring tru2way technology should be available later this year.— John Sciacca